HOMILY - 5/10/2020 - FR. JIM NADEAU

May8,2020

One of the most common things said by those who claim to be christians yet do not belong to a church is: I do not have to go to church to pray. While this may be true, the reality is that a person cannot be a christian as Jesus intended unless that person is a member of a christian church. To be a follower of Christ is to commit oneself to a community of faith and to take a share in the responsibility for that community. We see this in the first reading. The church was growing so much that they chose seven others to assist the needs of the community.

Furthermore, the bible is quite clear that God's way or plan for spiritual living is in community. In the book of Exodus, God makes a covenant with His people. He said, "I will be your God and you will be my people." The covenant is with the entire community not with an individual! Likewise, Moses gave directives on how to pray as individuals but also as a community - and - everyone was expected to join in. No one challenged His teaching. We even read about Jesus going to the synogogue "as was His custom," and "Where two or three are gathered, there He is." There are no spiritual loners in the bible. Acts of the Apostles gives us the pattern of community, spirituality, teaching, and fellowship.

Who are one of the first teachers of this pattern of community? Mothers! So important because a society without mothers would be a society that has lost its heart, lost the feel of home - because mothers are capable of testifying to tenderness, unconditional self-sacrifice, and the strength of hope. Where there is a mother, there is unity, there is belonging. As a church, we are called to belong, not just to believe - because the church is God's agenda for the world. The church is so significant that Jesus died for it. It should be significant for us, too!